Hundreds of S. Fla. bank employees to be laid off

Bank of America closing two Fort Lauderdale locations

More than 600 Bank of America employees in South Florida will soon be out of work after the company planned to make drastic cuts worldwide.

Last fall, Bank of America said it planned to lay off 30,000 of its employees. A company spokeswoman told Local 10 that two offices in Fort Lauderdale are among those slated to be closed.

Workers at the 1425 NW 62nd St. location have until the end of the year before their jobs get cut; those working at the 5th Way branch have until October 12.

The banking giant has been dealing with bad mortgages on its books for years and in a recent government filing it labels the housing market as a risk factor, writing:

"These declines in the housing market, with falling home prices and elevated foreclosures, have negatively impacted the demand for many of our products and the credit performance of our consumer mortgage portfolios."

That might explain why most of the hundreds of people who lost their job in Fort Lauderdale worked on mortgage modifications.